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Saint Thomas Aquinas

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

It is my determination that we are living at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to our culture, where little light shines upon us from above. I am not declaring that no light shines from above, but little. The absolute fact of man's original sin manifests itself in many different ways over the centuries. I think that we live in cultural cycles where man suffers enough by his own sin that he eventually looks up and realizes that God has been there all along and that he has committed a grave evil by ignoring him. It is then that man is able to be drawn back to the top of a more civilized, Godly, moral culture.

We find ourselves now looking downward turned in upon ourselves. We as men look once again to build our own utopia on earth believing we have no need for God. Every time in history man turns his back on God and seeks to build a utopia it is a catastrophic failure, resulting in another 'massacre of the innocents.' I was reading William F. Buckley recently and he cleverly said this myopic, worldly mentality was man's attempt to "immanentize the eschaton." I thought to myself, what a splendid phrase! What does this mean you ask, as I did. It describes the efforts of man as he looks to deny the transcendence of God. Man elevates his own work in time to be the measure of all things. This is the very definition of anti-Christ. It is man saying to God in so many words or actions, "I will not serve", or "I will serve only myself, I am the measure of all things." We call this arrogance the sin of pride. This results not only in the prevalence of vice and sin in contrast to virtue and holiness, but it results in the denial that any moral absolutes exist! It also denies the need for conversion to any transcendent God. Thus all that remains is man and his own delusional ideas of building a perfect world. The world is his only end.

It is not so surprising anymore to see this in the public square where God has been relegated to a mere superstition, having no relevance in the "real world." However, what is completely appalling is the Catholic Church's unraveling belief in any transcendent, unchangeable God, and replacing it with a worldly philosophy which has its end in the world. This is readily apparent by the open rejection of doctrine and dogma by many bishops, priests and laity in the Church, and the adoption of the ideal of "social justice." I will get to that question in a moment. But, we have reached an even lower level of the metaphorical barrel which I spoke of earlier. We now have a Pope who insists that man is the center of all things, and we now have a God who is not concerned with doctrine, dogma, moral absolutes or right worship. The world takes precedent over the divine, as we saw with the Vatican light show. We have a Pope who now constantly "immanentizes the eschaton."

Now back to the social justice question. If we are to talk of social justice we must define what its proper place is in reference to the eschaton. While all Catholics should express a concern and duty to provide for the poor, or stand up for the unjustly oppressed, today's Church, including Pope Francis seem to be fixated on "social justice" alone. As we know, good works are only the result of the participation in God's grace. Without this, there are no "good works" in the context of flowing from God's grace. This means that as a practicing Catholic, man must have faith in God as He has revealed Himself through His one and only Church. That is He is first a transcendent being, first mover, sustainer of man who cannot change and who is due right worship. Thus doctrine, dogma, faith and the works that man does cannot be separated. Social justice is not something we do, its part of the very fabric of being a believer. But to be clear, to lose the Transcendent in favor of the works of man in time for an end that exists only in time, is to reject the true eschaton, or end, which is God. How has Pope Francis manifested this prevailing worldly mentality to the world? In many ways.

For one, he never espouses a traditional Catholic viewpoint of eschatological action. Pope Francis rarely if ever calls anyone to conversion into the Catholic Church. Instead he gives a false impression when he meets at these interfaith dialogues, where he says things like, "Many think differently, feel differently, seeking God or meeting God in different ways. In this crowd, in this range of religions, there is only one certainty that we have for all: we are all children of God,” In fact, in the true sense of what the Church has defined as "children of God", is defined as those who are children by grace. This means that unless one possesses divine faith and divine grace, one is not a "child of God." Again Pope Francis addresses this is a worldly sense, that since we are created by God, we are then children of God. This is true only in the order of creation, not in the order of divine affiliation, which is what a Catholic should be addressing. To further my point, Pope Francis dos not ask for prayer for the conversion of sinners. Instead he says my "prayer request this month: that sincere dialogue among men and women of different faiths may produce fruits of peace and justice. I have confidence in your prayers.” What is this other than "immanentizing the eschaton?"

I want to stop for a moment and look at Pope Francis' recent decision to commemorate the horrific and scandalous event of the Protestant Reformation. This heretical event has largely been responsible for the collapse of Western Christendom, and the strong moral principles that were built upon it. Pope Francis frequently talks about unity, but what is his idea of unity? It hardly seems that his definition of unity is the same as the Church's definition. Again, Francis adopts the theological tendencies of Cardinal Kasper, who expressed numerous times that he does not believe in the "Ecumenism of the return." That is, it is not the goal of ecumenism to convert anyone to Catholicism. Of course Kasper cleverly says that he distinguishes between the role of ecumenism and evangelism, but it is clear that he only espouses the prior, not the later. This is also the case with our Pope. He rarely if ever speaks of conversion, instead focusing on worldly unity done for the purpose of "peace and justice."

I could go on and on ad-nauseam with numerous examples, but I want to point out one last example of the Pope's attempt to "immanentize the eschaton." Pope Francis recently spoke about the event of Jesus being found in the temple. The Pope gave his thoughts on the event and came to the conclusion that Jesus probably apologized for making the Blessed Mother and Saint Joseph come look for Him! This of course would be impossible since it would involve Jesus committing a sinful act, for which He would have had to apologize for. I do not have the time to go into the full ramifications of this proclamation of the Pope. I recommend that you read Fr. Brian Harrison's article on this. One thing is clear however, and that is Pope Francis looks upon Jesus and this event in a very worldly way, once again demonstrating how Pope Francis attempts to "immanentize the eschaton"

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

I will make this post very brief and to the point. Pope Francis is making a specific trip to celebrate the Reformation in Sweden. It is formally being declared as "a joint ecumenical commemoration of the Reformation." As a faithful Catholic, one cannot accept this course of action. It is an insult to the Saints, Our Lady and Our Lord. The Catholic martyrs who gave their lives for the true faith are insulted. The "Reformation" is nothing any sane Catholic could ever support or commemorate. In fact, if the Pope does anything other than calling for all heretical sects to return to the Catholic Church, his trip is in vain.

Saint Francis de Sales, one of the great heroes of the post-Reformation Church wrote:

Perhaps you will say, at last, that after a time your church will spread its wings, and will become Catholic by process of time; but this is talking in the air. For if an Augustine, a Chrysostom, an Ambrose, a Cyprian, a Gregory, and that great multitude of excellent pastors, have not been able to manage well enough to prevent the Church from tumbling over soon after their time, how [shall] Calvin, Luther, and the rest [do so]? What likelihood is there that it should grow stronger now, under the charge of your ministers, who neither in sanctity nor in doctrine are comparable with those? If the Church in its spring, summer, and autumn has not been fruitful, how would you have one gather fruits from it in winter? If in its youth it has made no progress, how far would you have it run in its old age?

To divide Christendom, to create factions there, to tear in pieces the robe of Our Lord, is the effect of their preachings. Christian doctrine is as a gentle rain, which makes unfruitful soil to bring forth: theirs rather resembles hail, which beats down and destroys the harvests, and makes barren the most fertile lands. Take notice of what S. Jude says: Woe to them who …have perished in, the gainsaying of Core (Core was a schismatic); these are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water which are carried about by the wind : - they have the exterior of the Scriptures, but they have not the interior moisture of the Spirit:-unfruitful trees of the autumn, -which have not the leaves of the letter nor the fruit of the inner. meaning ; twice dead, -dead to charity by schism, and to faith by heresy;-plucked up by the roots, unable any more to bear fruit; aging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion of disputes, contests and violent changes; wandering stars which can serve as guides to no one, and have no firmness of faith but change about in every direction. What wonder then that your preaching is sterile? You have but the bark without the sap, and how would you have it germinate? You have only the sheath without the sword, the letter without the meaning; no wonder you cannot uproot idolatry. So S. Paul (Tim. 3:9) speaking of those who separate from the Church, protests that they shall advance no further. If then your Church can in no way style itself Catholic up to this present, still less can you hope it may do so afterwards, since its preaching is so feeble, and its preachers have never undertaken, as Tertullian says (de Praesc. xlii.), the business or commission "of converting heathens, but only of perverting our own.” Oh what a Church, then, which is neither one, not holy nor Catholic, and, which is worse, can have no reasonable hope whatever that it will ever become so....

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

There has been a lot of media hype concerning the recent passing of rock icon David Bowie. Many people are praising him as a genius, a rock legend, one who has "done it all" as if all of these were virtues. This is not surprising coming from the worldly press or worldly people who have no sense of right and wrong, or know the difference between virtue and vice. Coming from Catholics however it is another story.

I have seen many Catholics on Facebook, blogs and websites writing about how great of man and musician he was and how he should be essentially memorialized because of his "artistic" genius. I happen to be a musician who has played and recorded music for over 25 years now. I have had admiration for many musicians and their talent as song writers, and some have influenced me in my musical en-devours. David Bowie however was never one of my favorites for several reasons, which have grown over the years.

When I was in my teens I only owned one cassette tape of Bowie's it was 'Space Oddity'. I listened to it a few times and was unimpressed and it went into the floorboards of my truck. I found his music depressing and his image quite freakish and weird to say the least. Over the years of course it was hard not to see his appearances in films and hear his different musical releases. I was never drawn to his music or his weird image which I always found disturbing, but I never really investigated as to why.

As years have gone by I have done some investigating into the music industry as well as satanism and the occult. I came to find out that many of my musical "heroes" were into some pretty perverted things including occultism, witchcraft and satanism. As a result, over the years I began to limit myself on what music I listened to, depending on the lyrics and the lifestyles of the artists. I ended up ditching many of my CDs and LPs that I thought were detrimental to my soul.

How does this all come back around to Bowie? It so happens that Bowie is one of the worst cases when it comes to the occult, drug use, perverted sexuality and most other vices. One thing that always bothered me about Bowie was how he looked. He appeared to be a cross between a man and women. Bowie was into many perverted sexual acts, and was an admitted admirer of Aleister Crowley, a famous satanist, "do what thou will." Satanism does not always consist of a worship of satan as a person, but as a lived out attitude which glorifies doing whatever one wills no matter the cultural climate one may find themselves in. Bowie was often referred to as androgynous. His on stage antics were often very feminine and thus he spearheaded the modern movement to blur the lines between men and women. It is no secret that he was bisexual and had relations with many other famous people including Mick Jagger.

Bowie was also into occult type "artistic" ventures all the way up to his death. His early fascination with Crowley is certainly disturbing, but his interests changed over time going into different aspects of the occult. They show up in his videos and art throughout his career. A recent interview with the director of Bowie's very last musical movie clip says that he and Bowie had a mutual admiration for Crowley. The director also talks about some of the imagery in his last video which is quite perverted. I caution you on the vulgarity of the interview that I will link to here, for those who do not want to take my word for it. The article also has a link to the 10 minute video released just before his death, which is steeped in occultism. Watch at your own risk, it is very dark and disturbing.

Was Bowie a nice guy? Perhaps. A genius? Perhaps. He made a successful career out of his musical and artistic en-devours and managed to stay at the top of his game nearly 50 years. Does this make him some type of role model for our generation or someone to be admired? Clearly not. Bowie stood against everything that the Catholic faith stands for. The real problem in today's society is not that people happen to sin. The real problem is that sin is now glorified as something good and virtuous. Unfortunately Bowie was instrumental in sensationalizing the image of sin through his "art." He was instrumental in the movement to tear down the moral compass of our society. Catholics should not be holding this man up as an artistic hero, but an iconoclastic bane that stood more for anarchy and hedonism than anything else. We would do better to warn people about his "art" and pray for the repose of his soul.

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